Kyosuke is confronted with the reality that he does, in fact, love his sister in a very unnatural but romantic way, and realizes that he must now tell the other potential girlfriends in his life the truth. One by one, he rejects their advances and confesses to them his love for Kirino, thereby sabotaging any potential relationships. Eventually, Kyosuke proposes to his sister in public, and she accepts......

Yui, Yukari, and Yuzuko are in their first year of high school, and haven’t found a club to join yet. They’re stopped while wandering the halls by a flyer for the “Data Processing Club,” and their homeroom teacher, who happens to be the advisor for this club, comes across them and asks them to join. Unable to resist the teacher’s cuteness (or breasts, depending on the member of the trio), the three girls agree. Their club meetings consist of sitting at computers and randomly searching for information on the internet on any variety of topics, but the range of their friendship stretches far beyond the confines of the tiny club room, their school grounds, or the sheer absurdity of Yuzuko’s mind.

We have arrived at the end of another season of Oreimo, and there is still much work to be done tying up the loose ends in the last three episodes...Season Two of Oreimo pretty much met the kind of expectations I had at the onset of watching it. Every character had a significant amount of development and started really interacting with each other in very amusing ways.

After Lord Kannagi loses his Hayagami, he decides that his best course of action is to travel with Arata Hinohara and guide him to rule the world, even if the Earth boy doesn’t know if he wants to do so. They enter the land of Lord Yorunami, but before they progress any further, Kannagi tests Arata’s mettle....

Leviatan is a water wielding mage with a missing brother living in a quiet village populated by dragon-scaled, elf-eared people. It is during her daily magic lessons that Leviatan meets a fairy named Syrop bearing dire news: the planet is being invaded by monsters bent on world destruction. To counter this, Syrop invites Leviatan to join the Aquafall Defense team and repel the invading insectoid creatures. Along the way she meets fire mage Bahamut and the axe wielding Jörmungandr. Together they embark on adventures, befriending Guardians, restoring temples, and pondering ways of getting stronger.

Things are going two small steps forward and one step back for Karneval. Like Valvrave, this show tries to be too many things at once, and the Circus/Karneval motif is still largely tacked on for stylistic and filler effect.

Much of humanity has migrated into space, and three clear factions have formed, associated with different Earth powers: ARUS, which holds its own via negotiation; Dorssia, which functions as a military state; and JIOR, a much smaller neutral nation that finds its power in its economic prosperity.
Haruto Tokishima is a student at Sakimori High School, a private institution in Module 77 of JIOR’s space colonies. He is going about his daily life as war rages between the other two factions, about to confess love to his childhood friend, Shouko Sashinami, when the colony falls under Dorssian attack, breaking JIOR’s neutrality. A mech housed beneath the school is accidentally launched to the surface level near Haruto, who climbs aboard and is asked an unsettling question by the onboard computer: “Do you resign your humanity?” His answer grants him pilothood of the mech, known as a Valvrave—but what is the extent of the human cost of his decision to defend his fellow students, and how is the now-isolated student body supposed to carry on with no clear authority in place?

The summer season of Attack on Titan picks up with an oddly-cut and remixed summary episode, which can be skipped entirely if you’ve watched the first season, but it does its job for newcomers to the show. Afterward, we’re dropped into a trial for Eren’s life as the Military Police and the Survey Corps vie for his destiny....

The characters have all been pretty well-established at this point, and the majority are at least somewhat memorable. Since that's been accomplished, watching "Aiura" has kind of been like visiting a familiar friend.

I've concluded that Sparrow's Hotel is now actively trying to crush any minuscule hope I place in it to turn around. This anime remains pretty terrible and overall disappointing. Continue to avoid it. You're better off, I promise.

The intense feelings I felt after episode one quickly diminished as I awoke from my ideal dream of what Valvrave would be, and I was left with what it actually was. The two are pretty different. I expected the anime to continue on with Haruto following a path to work....

This anime has so little impact that it is immediately forgettable, which is unfortunate considering the popularity of its source material but also begs the question that if the anime is this flat, what’s the original app-game like?

I just finished Episode Ten of Majestic Prince and I must say, I am really satisfied. In a nutshell, in the last three episodes we have been treated to beautiful battle scenes and good character development, but we also got details of the plot we've yearned for since the start.

Gargantia’s had a pretty even keel in its story up until this latest round of episodes, where it’s added several twists to the mix that have left me wondering just where this show will go. After Ledo kills the whalesquid in episode seven, he is faced with the social backlash such brutality of a sacred creature incites.

The makeup of the Gargantia and the direction of the series take a significant turn over this span of episodes. Relics from Earth’s distant past inform Ledo’s understanding of how humanity reached the point of his own situation, and they weigh heavily on him.

After some fancy strategizing by Armin and a startling revelation about what could be humanity’s best chance against the Titans, the last two episodes largely take place in the exact same corner of the city in one of the stupidest standoffs in anime history.

We’ve gone from desperate fighting with our backs up against the wall and mysterious titan-on-titan fighting to the hope of humanity rising and a (somewhat) clear path being revealed. Attack on Titan is shaping up to be one epic storyline with what feels like the first overarching story hitting its pinnacle.

At just over halfway through the season, Leviatan sticks stubbornly to its pattern of boring, weak and often random plotlines that only marginally connect to the premise of the show. The characters are flat, and the animation is inconsistent and lazy – the single fight sequence of any note thus far recycles the same frame sequence multiple times and culminates in the most boring climax yet. It’s as if this anime is deliberately trying to make you yawn and put it down.

In all seriousness, this anime is still going nowhere. There are attempts to give a slice-of-life look into working at a hotel, however that slice of life is ruined when, during a crazed week of tourism, a great deal of emphasis is put on Sayuri's breasts.

Devil Survivor is definitely living up to the expectations put on it, coming from a best-selling game from a huge-name franchise. Since episode one, Hibiki, Nitta, and Daichi have gone through a number of battles - a lot for only three days in the series - and learned a lot about their situation.

For a show we all expected to be full of lolicon and hair porn/innuendo, The Severing Crime Edge is turning out to be one of the better shows this season, if not one of the most all-around entertaining. In the first episode, we were tantalized with the idea of Killing Goods,

The shape of events in Amawakuni after the loss of the princess is becoming clearer as Akashi, one of Kannagi’s fellow Shinsho, starts trying to gather other Hayagami as his own. Arata Hinohara figures out more of his role, and how he’ll go about fulfilling it.

Arata Hinohara, in the place of the Amawakuni Arata, is captured and charged with the murder of the princess and sentenced to a prison island (along with Kotoha, the girl from Arata’s tribe) where random executions keep the populace there on edge.

Gargantia remains a vibrant story about high-tech war meeting low-tech cohabitation. There’s not too much to report on here as the story continues to follow Ledo’s efforts to fit in, map the sky, and understand the strangeness that is Gargantia.

After episode 4, the show was meandering in all kinds of directions. Was it a mech show? Was it just a sci-fi school rom-com? It finally has meshed the two together into what this show should have been from the beginning.

Valvrave isn’t a very good roller coaster. It’s a buffet of sorts, a smattering of servings of different tropes and themes, and the chef preparing the feast is only good at one or two of the offerings. There’s isn’t a really good sense of whether or not this is a mech show, a school drama show, a politics show, or a mysterious powers show.

When we last left Team Rabbits, they had just successfully completed their mission and surpassed all expectations during the process, especially mine! At the end of the first episode, we were left with many different questions.

The security forces at Wall Rose, the middle of the three walls protecting mankind, are surprised by a renewed Titan attack, sending the newly commissioned forces into battle. As usual for Titan attacks, the human forces don't fare very well.

Attack on Titan has remained gripping, brutal, and masterfully woven in episodes 5 through 7. It spotlights deep-running weaknesses in each of the characters present on screen, be it cowardice or arrogance, and meets that with the often fatal results of such weakness.

Three episodes later, humanity has been forced inside the next of three concentric walls, Wall Rose, since the outermost - Wall Maria - was completely overrun by the Titans. Eren, Armin, and Mikasa have made their way through military training along with a partially colorful group of other students.

It’s been a slow but impressive learning process for Ledo – but he’s finally getting the hang of the culture and the language. He’s made faux-pas that have put the Gargantia in jeopardy, he’s taken the care to learn from those mistakes and fix them. Uttering his first words in the Earth language was a particularly endearing moment as well.

It’s been a slice-of-life slog for Yuyushiki, but an ADD one to be sure. Most of the humor, as the show goes on, involves equal parts totally random gags, the pink and dark-haired girls fawning over the blonde one and their teacher, and the search-engine free association I was hoping would be the focus of the show.

Season Two has so far shaped up to meet the expectations of fans of the series, and then some. Episode One reinstated Kirino as the eroge otaku that she is, much to the chagrin of a supportive Kyosuke. Episode 2 was an Ayase-centric story, in which she had to come to terms with Kirino’s eroge obsessions as it related to their long-term friendship.

When we left our discussion of Sparrow's Hotel, I was thanking the creators for only giving me three minutes of this train wreck to watch. Since then, I've watched an additional three episodes, which brings my time lost to this anime to twelve minutes. Let's just say I'll be sending the creator my invoice for time that I would like back.

This series began strong and has continued to tell its story with impact and aplomb. It is brutal, gritty, and simply does not shy away from the terrible implications of a society trying to flourish under threat from nearly invincible predators.

I'm three more episodes (so like 12 more minutes) into the series now, and nothing very memorable has happened. The main character's name is Ayuko, and she is basically devoid of personality, merely serving as the voice of reason for her two friends, Kanaka and Saki (who really aren't even that frivolous…just somewhat annoying).

Gargantia began with a sci-fi bent and a cleverly written juxtaposition between new and old, and culture and utility, and it’s grown into a wonderful comparison between strife and life. Ledo remains confused by the concept of culture and the seemingly wasteful traditions of the fleet for which he’s become a feature.

Zettai Boei Leviatan is, in a nutshell, incredibly boring. Going on episode five, the story has yet to develop… there are random, awkward scenarios thrown at the characters with arbitrary obstacles and nonsensical, easy-out solutions that do nothing to foster a sense of fear or tension.

I will say that the artwork is very beautiful, however - it's shaded more than a typical anime and looks a lot like watercolor. It has a very illustrative feel, which makes me hope that the story itselfwill be very smooth, atmospheric, and interesting.

I just completed episode 1 of Valvrave the Liberator, and all I can say is ‘WOW!’ and ‘OH MY GOD! WHAT EVEN?’ Suffice it to say, this anime blew my mind away in ways I never expected, and completely took me by surprise. Instead of being the typical run-of-the-mill giant robot anime, like Majestic Prince was last week and the many others that came before them, this anime is already displaying some themes that just hit home on many levels.

The year is True Calendar 71. Humanity has moved 70% of its populations to space colonies known as “Dyson Spheres” (no, they are not styled after vacuum cleaners), and on the neutral colony of JIOR, at least, things seem to be at peace. However, teenage agents from an aggressing force invade the colony and the academy found there in search of some sort of secret base.

Without being aware of too many of them, I get the feeling that “slice-of-life school club comedies” are a dime a dozen now. After Azumanga Daioh set the standard for the genre (well, without the club bit) in the early 2000s, it’s difficult to call the rest true “copycats” – they all explore different clubs, even if the style of humor is largely the same. It’s not like a ton of these all run concurrently, so it’s kind of like a burger that you keep ordering over and over again. It was great the first time, and it’s still good the other times, except for the occasional bad lettuce or old bun or something like that.

First, the animation was just plain awful. Its only possible mark of quality was that it was in color. The movement was terribly awkward and the character designs did not fit the environment. The musical opening was also pretty unmemorable and did nothing to even remotely explain the anime. Once I regained my composure from the animation and accepted it, the plot - if we can even call this a plot - kicked in.

I initially agreed to pick this up because of the director, Hiroshi Nagahama, who directed two of my favorites - Detroit Metal City and Mushi-shi - and the premise sounded interesting - psychological slice-of-life teenage drama. There's a lot here to turn off potential viewers - the art style contrasts highly detailed backgrounds with character designs

The epic bro-meets-sis romantic comedy continues on in Season Two. When we last left our heroine, Kirino had returned to Japan with the encouragement of big bro Kyosuke after a brief time attending to a track camp in America (for anybody keeping score of things from season one, this is a continuation of the season one True Route Ending, NOT the Good Ending).

Shingeki no Kyoujin comes out of the gate strong. Its style, design, and sound are all superb, as is the attention to detail in animating even highly dynamic sequences. There are a few odd choices regarding what doesn’t get animated but that’s a minor bump in the road for the first episode. The story begins with the reveal of a titan more than 50m tall and the decided lack of sound that fades into eerie music is a fantastic choice to develop instant foreboding.

The Titans have largely been dormant, or have stayed away from the city, for a century. The city guards are ridiculed as freeloaders, but at least the Recon teams they send out to observe the Titans have some respect... until one day, a Recon team returns battered with several missing members.

Based on a mobile game by GREE in Japan, Zettai Boei Leviatan is set on the water planet Aquafell and is populated by elf-eared dragon people. So far, in this first episode, it appears to be setting itself up as a magical girl adventure story, introducing the world, the world’s Creation Myth, and three main characters who wield staves and call upon elemental magic. Leviatan is a water magic user with a...

Well, the Spring 2013 Anime Season is upon us, and the first series to step up to bat for me was Majestic Prince. Initially this anime was nowhere even close to my radar, but then I stumbled across a trailer. It sparked my interest with promises of amazing mech battles, stunning animation, and an interesting story. Needless to say, I was pretty excited and quickly added it to my queue on Crunchyroll. I’m so glad I did.